"Or how about scripting cron to automagically install updates on client machines from a server"
How about deploying SUS and then setting it up like so: http://www.fawcette.com/reports/mec/2002/10_0 9_02/ schnoll/figure1.asp
"In Windows you have to install 3rd party software and pay even more."
Windows has a built in task scheduler.
"Anyway, there is certainly something to be said for the ease of maintanability of Linux vs Windows, at least from the standpoint of someone who maintains University labs of Win2k machines;-)"
It's sad that so many Windows administrators know so little about Windows.
doskey c2 = cd "c:/winnt/system32/documents and settings/administrator/my documents/code/C++/ch02"
doskey p4 = cd "c:\winnt\documents and settings\administrator\my documents\code\perl\ch04"
etc... You can save these associations to a file and recall them using 'DOSKEY/MACROFILE='. You can create a custom command prompt icon which will set up your environment with that, etc.
"Even though those utilities have been ported to Win2K, they cannot perform the same functionality on an operating system that hides 75% of it's operation from all users."
Give me specific examples!
"THAT is what makes unix more flexible."
No, what makes unix more flexible is that you know how to use unix. Since you are ignorant of Windows administration you immediately assume something is not possible.
"So the web server management, user account managment service startup, firewall managment, hardware configuration and the like can all be configured in Win2K using PERL and other commandline utilities?"
Yes.
"As we argue, Windows engineers are trying to figure out a way to add a usefull file based configuration and command line shell to the next release of windows."
They did that in Windows 2000.
You're either ignorant or a troll, or both. Prove your otherwise by giving specific examples.
"I can think of a two: to shorten the discovery time frame for the defendant, and to maintain rights to ongoing damages should they happen to settle -or- go to court and prevail."
Since a civil copyright case is largely dependent upon proving damages... They don't want to let the cat out of the bag until the judge sees the evidence, because if it's already fixed their claim of damages won't have as much impact.
"You're probably right. I have no idea what percentage of IP-theft related suits actually continue through to judgment, I'm thinking it's pretty low."
Yeah, it might also evolve into a case where IBM countersues SCO for something else.
"Exactly, the fact they aren't prepared to even present a single example of this makes me very suspicious."
Ummm, they said they are prepared to present examples in court.
So are you less suspicious now?
"It would be magnitudes easier for SCO devels to steal code from the Linux kernel (even unintentionally) than for the Linux kernel to steal code from SCO. "
SCO had a working relationship with IBM on the Monterey project. Obviously IBM then had access to SCO source. SCO is now claiming persons within IBM took said access to SCO source and used it in some Linux component.
"Anyhow, as some have already mentioned, who's to say that the code lines in question weren't already in the public domain prior to them even being in SCO?"
The Judge at the court hearing.
"I'm doubling-down on IBM if they want to play a chicken-and-the-egg fight in this suit."
I'll take a bet that IBM settles the case out of court.
"For instance, many bids that go out are mandated by policy to include certain types of software, often name-specific."
That depends on the problem being solved. If your problem is you need MS Office, well then the decision as to which software to use has already been made.
If your problem is you need a GIS system for the county assessor's office, then that's not true. You're getting bids for outside contractors to build the system, and if they use OSS or commercial than so be it, as long as the system meets the criteria.
I used to work on GIS systems sold to county government so I'm well aware of the process. I also used to work for state government and am well aware of how we submitted purchase requests.
"The problem with a monopoly is that it warps the market space-time around it, like a black hole."
Oh please, you're putting me to sleep with your insane ranting.
"The recent spate of proposed local- and state-level legislation merely provides an alternative to commercial-only procurements. There is no "forcing down their throats.""
Hence the word 'mandate'? That wasn't accidental, that was placed in the title of this article by/. because that is their desired goal.
It is also Redhat's desired goal to outlaw their competition: http://www.redhat.com/opensourcenow/ bill_opensourc e.html
These tactics are just about the lowest of the low and are far worse than anything Microsoft has ever done in terms of ethics.
That's just smart business. You're playing bids from MS's competition against them, and they absolutely should discount their prices to maintain customers. I don't understand why MS's government licensing is higher than educational or why they don't offer education pricing to support staff for home use.(They used to, years ago... then they canceled it)
I guess I was referring to other deals I've seen over the years. Although I was impressed recently when Michigan told Pfizer to f* off, after Pfizer threatened to close plants in their state if they didn't buy more of their drugs thru Medicaid.
Funny you would mention McVeigh. His attack on the Federal Building was because he considered the FBI and ATF to be Evil.
This ideology was promoted by radio talk show hosts at the time such as G Gordon Liddy who called the ATF a bunch of Jack Booted Thugs and so on.
I do agree, that this is the result of a decline in the nature of discourse in our society, but it began years ago, well before Linux or/. came into popularity.
"My point is that Linux users need to get beyond the thought that Linux is impervious to viruses and worms and they need to start using antivirus software."
Linux users have quite a large number of misconceptions about computing systems. This is only one of them.:(
No, the Open Source zealots have an answer for that...
Their software will be exempted.
Of course that right there guarantees Open Source software will never be used in government or business climates.
Most regulations are in place to protect the existing companies from competition by raising the barrier to entry even higher. So I'm actually surprised Microsoft is against this, although maybe it's a Brer Rabbit defense.
"However, the day that cities decide to have a central server run the traffic lights so they can...say, control traffic around accident areas...things will go wrong. "
Actually I wouldn't be surprised if traffic lights aren't already centrally controlled in some urban areas.
Traffic lights have a human safety factor, in the event of bad instructions they can fail over to flashing red in all 4 directions. Humans are trained to understand that flashing red means stop. So the worst case, that the lights are signalled green in all four directions at once can be mitigated by throwing an exception and falling into the flashing red mode.
"I don't see this so much as software causing problems as much as the tendency we have to make what used to be simple things really complicated."
KISS should always be applied. The simpler a system, the more reliable it will be.
However, as technology improves over the years the barrier which defines simplicity increases. Traffic Lights 100 years ago were manually operated, today they are controlled by sensors monitoring traffice flow.
"Actually, I disagree that communism failed because people got tired of contributing. In my opinion, there really hasn't been a "ideological" communist state to exist yet."
The first stage to Communism, according to Karl Marx, is the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. This corresponds to the use of force to tear the state apart and rebuild it as a classless society.
So you're right that the ideological state has yet to exist, but that is because the ideology is fundamentally flawed, and cannot exist due to human nature.
"It seems crazy to me that consumers are willing to pay $800 for a $300 computer with Windows and Office. Eventually consumers will figure this out too."
I bought a DVD player over a year ago for $200. In the past year I have spent roughly $500 on DVD titles.
I bought a CD changer back in 1997 for $200. Over the past 6 years I've probably spent $4,000 on CD titles.
Consumers are very used to software costing more than the hardware. The hardware exists to run the software, nothing more. You're understanding of the market is limited to the hobbyist world. Surprise, surprise, the computing market has developed well beyond that small niche.
Does that mean Software will continue to cost what it does today? No, obviously not considering software does not cost what it did 10 years ago. Microsoft seems to even be understanding the principle of "many nickels being better than a few dimes" with the student edition of Office. Such changes in pricing will likely continue forward.
"The real problem will be when the users don't immediately install Windows on the computer, and are happy with Linux. "
Slashdot Mirror
"Or how about scripting cron to automagically install updates on client machines from a server"
0 9_02/ schnoll/figure1.asp
;-)"
How about deploying SUS and then setting it up like so:
http://www.fawcette.com/reports/mec/2002/10_
"In Windows you have to install 3rd party software and pay even more."
Windows has a built in task scheduler.
"Anyway, there is certainly something to be said for the ease of maintanability of Linux vs Windows, at least from the standpoint of someone who maintains University labs of Win2k machines
It's sad that so many Windows administrators know so little about Windows.
Ok, next complaint.
Ok, you need to readup on the DOSkey command
/MACROFILE='. You can create a custom command prompt icon which will set up your environment with that, etc.
doskey c2 = cd "c:/winnt/system32/documents and settings/administrator/my documents/code/C++/ch02"
doskey p4 = cd "c:\winnt\documents and settings\administrator\my documents\code\perl\ch04"
etc... You can save these associations to a file and recall them using 'DOSKEY
"Still Unix rocks in this regard."
Ok next complaint.
Security patches to what?
Applications... no problem, just shut them down before applying the patch.
kernel... well I would like to see Linux do that.
"Even though those utilities have been ported to Win2K, they cannot perform the same functionality on an operating system that hides 75% of it's operation from all users."
Give me specific examples!
"THAT is what makes unix more flexible."
No, what makes unix more flexible is that you know how to use unix. Since you are ignorant of Windows administration you immediately assume something is not possible.
It's the same old story with linux trolls.
"So the web server management, user account managment service startup, firewall managment, hardware configuration and the like can all be configured in Win2K using PERL and other commandline utilities?"
Yes.
"As we argue, Windows engineers are trying to figure out a way to add a usefull file based configuration and command line shell to the next release of windows."
They did that in Windows 2000.
You're either ignorant or a troll, or both. Prove your otherwise by giving specific examples.
What's your bash/perl script do?
I'm up for the challenge!
-MCSE
I think it would be a mistake to group all software development into the same market.
That would be like saying all manufacturing is the same market, so televisions and automobiles should be lumped together.
If I play Halo on my 51" television I get nauseous.
"Resources are NOT cheap dispite what everbody claims."
Considering back in 1992 I paid US$300 for an 80 Gig drive, and RAM was $50 a megabyte...
Resources *ARE* cheap.
Pay attention to the way you spun that.
We're not talking about saving taxpayer dollars. We're talking about mandating a technology which cannot win in the freemarket based on virtue alone.
If open source really saved people money, then people would use it with having to be forced.
"I can think of a two: to shorten the discovery time frame for the defendant, and to maintain rights to ongoing damages should they happen to settle -or- go to court and prevail."
Since a civil copyright case is largely dependent upon proving damages... They don't want to let the cat out of the bag until the judge sees the evidence, because if it's already fixed their claim of damages won't have as much impact.
"You're probably right. I have no idea what percentage of IP-theft related suits actually continue through to judgment, I'm thinking it's pretty low."
Yeah, it might also evolve into a case where IBM countersues SCO for something else.
Colin Powell will be presenting the evidence at the UN next month.
"Exactly, the fact they aren't prepared to even present a single example of this makes me very suspicious."
Ummm, they said they are prepared to present examples in court.
So are you less suspicious now?
"It would be magnitudes easier for SCO devels to steal code from the Linux kernel (even unintentionally) than for the Linux kernel to steal code from SCO. "
SCO had a working relationship with IBM on the Monterey project. Obviously IBM then had access to SCO source. SCO is now claiming persons within IBM took said access to SCO source and used it in some Linux component.
"Anyhow, as some have already mentioned, who's to say that the code lines in question weren't already in the public domain prior to them even being in SCO?"
The Judge at the court hearing.
"I'm doubling-down on IBM if they want to play a chicken-and-the-egg fight in this suit."
I'll take a bet that IBM settles the case out of court.
"For instance, many bids that go out are mandated by policy to include certain types of software, often name-specific."
/. because that is their desired goal.
/ bill_opensourc e.html
That depends on the problem being solved. If your problem is you need MS Office, well then the decision as to which software to use has already been made.
If your problem is you need a GIS system for the county assessor's office, then that's not true. You're getting bids for outside contractors to build the system, and if they use OSS or commercial than so be it, as long as the system meets the criteria.
I used to work on GIS systems sold to county government so I'm well aware of the process. I also used to work for state government and am well aware of how we submitted purchase requests.
"The problem with a monopoly is that it warps the market space-time around it, like a black hole."
Oh please, you're putting me to sleep with your insane ranting.
"The recent spate of proposed local- and state-level legislation merely provides an alternative to commercial-only procurements. There is no "forcing down their throats.""
Hence the word 'mandate'? That wasn't accidental, that was placed in the title of this article by
It is also Redhat's desired goal to outlaw their competition:
http://www.redhat.com/opensourcenow
These tactics are just about the lowest of the low and are far worse than anything Microsoft has ever done in terms of ethics.
That's just smart business. You're playing bids from MS's competition against them, and they absolutely should discount their prices to maintain customers. I don't understand why MS's government licensing is higher than educational or why they don't offer education pricing to support staff for home use.(They used to, years ago... then they canceled it)
I guess I was referring to other deals I've seen over the years. Although I was impressed recently when Michigan told Pfizer to f* off, after Pfizer threatened to close plants in their state if they didn't buy more of their drugs thru Medicaid.
Why is it that OSS people feel the only way they can get people to use their software is if they force it down their throats?
It's sad, but I think you are right...
:(
That is largely how government works.
"Most displays can now display well over 256 colours, but it is considered good website design practice to stick to them."
You sound like the sysadmin at work who grew up on Netware and thinks we still shouldn't have directory names more than 8 characters long.
Funny you would mention McVeigh. His attack on the Federal Building was because he considered the FBI and ATF to be Evil.
/. came into popularity.
This ideology was promoted by radio talk show hosts at the time such as G Gordon Liddy who called the ATF a bunch of Jack Booted Thugs and so on.
I do agree, that this is the result of a decline in the nature of discourse in our society, but it began years ago, well before Linux or
"My point is that Linux users need to get beyond the thought that Linux is impervious to viruses and worms and they need to start using antivirus software."
:(
Linux users have quite a large number of misconceptions about computing systems. This is only one of them.
No, the Open Source zealots have an answer for that...
Their software will be exempted.
Of course that right there guarantees Open Source software will never be used in government or business climates.
Most regulations are in place to protect the existing companies from competition by raising the barrier to entry even higher. So I'm actually surprised Microsoft is against this, although maybe it's a Brer Rabbit defense.
"However, the day that cities decide to have a central server run the traffic lights so they can...say, control traffic around accident areas...things will go wrong. "
Actually I wouldn't be surprised if traffic lights aren't already centrally controlled in some urban areas.
Traffic lights have a human safety factor, in the event of bad instructions they can fail over to flashing red in all 4 directions. Humans are trained to understand that flashing red means stop. So the worst case, that the lights are signalled green in all four directions at once can be mitigated by throwing an exception and falling into the flashing red mode.
"I don't see this so much as software causing problems as much as the tendency we have to make what used to be simple things really complicated."
KISS should always be applied. The simpler a system, the more reliable it will be.
However, as technology improves over the years the barrier which defines simplicity increases. Traffic Lights 100 years ago were manually operated, today they are controlled by sensors monitoring traffice flow.
"Actually, I disagree that communism failed because people got tired of contributing. In my opinion, there really hasn't been a "ideological" communist state to exist yet."
The first stage to Communism, according to Karl Marx, is the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. This corresponds to the use of force to tear the state apart and rebuild it as a classless society.
So you're right that the ideological state has yet to exist, but that is because the ideology is fundamentally flawed, and cannot exist due to human nature.
It's all because of that DIR command, isn't it?
"It seems crazy to me that consumers are willing to pay $800 for a $300 computer with Windows and Office. Eventually consumers will figure this out too."
I bought a DVD player over a year ago for $200. In the past year I have spent roughly $500 on DVD titles.
I bought a CD changer back in 1997 for $200. Over the past 6 years I've probably spent $4,000 on CD titles.
Consumers are very used to software costing more than the hardware. The hardware exists to run the software, nothing more. You're understanding of the market is limited to the hobbyist world. Surprise, surprise, the computing market has developed well beyond that small niche.
Does that mean Software will continue to cost what it does today? No, obviously not considering software does not cost what it did 10 years ago. Microsoft seems to even be understanding the principle of "many nickels being better than a few dimes" with the student edition of Office. Such changes in pricing will likely continue forward.
"The real problem will be when the users don't immediately install Windows on the computer, and are happy with Linux. "
Yeah, any day now that's going to happen. *cough*